Oronte Churm is the pen name of John Griswold, who teaches in the MFA program at McNeese State University, proudly nestled in Cajun country on the Louisiana Gulf.

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Tim Peters, who graduated from here a couple of years ago, was a philosophy major, as I recall. When he took one of my classes I saw instantly he could also write like hell. Now my young friend writes his own series of dispatches for McSweeney's, called Notes From the Caddieshack, as well as other things around town, such as this review of graphic novelist Chris Ware at The Point and these book reviews at Slant Magazine.

Tim's also been working on a series of what he calls "diagram stories" or "comics without pictures," which I've read with pleasure and found to be awfully smart. I am fortunate to publish the first of them here. Click the picture above to enlarge it so you can move around in the text.

Fittingly for a true philosopher, Tim's led a peripatetic life since college, much of it abroad, trying very purposefully not to get too attached or burdened with responsibilities while he tries to get his thoughts straight. Recently he saw, quite precociously, that peeling labels off videotapes all day didn't live up to the internship description he'd been given, so he's on the road again, bumming his way to San Francisco. Or LA. Or Java.

Tim has youth, talent, intelligence, daring, and good looks on his side, which I've managed to forgive him for, since he also has a rock-solid sense of the problems facing his generation as they find their way in the wider world. It might seem a tad bleak when he starts talking about the varieties of gratification, but all I hear is possibility.